Gaddafi Seeks Deal To Let Him Escape Libya, Instead of Being Hanged

The bloodiest, craziest, most Gaddafiest revolution of 2011 (so far) got a little closer to the end as the West’s favorite dictator/basket case supposedly begged for a deal to let him and his family escape Libya alive. The rebel leadership thought about this for several seconds and then said, “Nah, dude.” Let this be a lesson to dictators and despots around the world: Don’t send military jet planes to bomb your own people just before asking them for a “deal.” According to the Wall Street Journal, “The rebel-led governing council, based in Benghazi, in eastern Libya, rejected the invitation and said it wasn’t sincere.” Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is maybe thinking about sending NATO some memo or whatever, perhaps a text message. If Obama loves Ronald Reagan so much, you would think Obama might remember how the Reagan Administration bombed the hell out of Libya in 1986, just to show everybody. [Wall Street Journal]

Remember how your fake-liberal boyfriend Barack Obama was going to close down the international torture-prisons the United States operates all over the world, starting with the evil-ass Gitmo? Ha ha, just kidding! The Obama Administration will start military tribunal kangaroo court torture executions at Guantanamo again, because why not? (It’s “Political Reality,” ha ha.) [BBC News]

The U.S. launched another one of those weird unmanned mini-space shuttles. Nobody will say what it does, or what the last one did … it’s just cold orbiting around all the time, doing secrets. [RedOrbit]

How about the Nicolae Ceausescu end of being thrown to their own dogs trained to eat people?

ArmoredBore

Brutal, but some dark partition of my heart likes it

memzilla

What, Khaddafi lost David Koch's cell phone number?

genxr

I know, right? Those damn public sector unions!

http://www.wonkette.com ManchuCandidate

Jeebus Ken, what the hell are you doing up so early? I've been up since 4am EST thanks to this fucking chest cold I got this weekend and early morning coughing fits. What's your excuse?

As for Kadaffi duck, Mu… didn't you know that bombing them only pisses them off? I know it's contrary to the ramblings of Billy Mitchell, Bomber Harris, Curtiss LeMay and all the other sky blue boy propaganda of "winning from teh air" but here we are.

V572625694

Sure, but it worked great in Vietnam!

At least that what the Air Force says.

http://whateveritisimagainstit.blogspot.com trampndirtdown

B1 Bob says "it's a lie" hippy.

http://kittenbomb.wordpress.com kittenbomb

Bombing the hell out of your people is practically a reach around in Libya.

JoeHoya

The rebels are offering a compromise: He's free to leave the country _after_ they hang him.

user-of-owls

There ain't no asylum here,
King Solomon he never lived round here

Come here a minute

Go straight to hell, boy, do not pass GO, do not collect two hundred billion dollars.

http://wonkette.com/ weejee

What with G'Daffy having a long time Clash with reality, one might suppose that he may have some t. gondii symptoms. Cats are the definitive hosts for toxoplasma gondii, and if anything G'Daffy thinks he's a cool cat. Does he roast them on his faux Bedouin camp fire? Just sayin'

Serolf_Divad

Does this mean GaddahFEST is cancelled this year? I heard they already had Great White, The Alarm and System of a Down lined up to play At the Tripoli Metrodome.

(P.S. Manchu.. I'm at work by 6:30 every day… means I get to leave at 2:30 yaaaay!)

http://www.wonkette.com ManchuCandidate

Oh you early risers. I get up at a more civilized hour of 7am and my work day usually starts before 8am (benefits of working from home.) Problem is that this chest cold has killed my sleep and I'm brain dead… which is not good for work… and I whine a lot.

http://wonkette.com Ken Layne

6:00 for me, usually, but I'm usually on the "good coast" so it's still too late to Win the Morning/Future/Winning In General.

Come here a minute

WIN the WIG.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/cheaphits/reviews/ cheaphits

Maybe just send Great White with full pyrotechnics in the tent and problem solved.

HistoriCat

Too soon!

OK maybe not too soon but that's some cold shit.

Negropolis

K.Daffy be trippin'. That is all on that.

BTW, if France wants a no-fly zone, I'd be happy to let them intiate and leader this with NATO with us in a support role, instead of waiting for the US to pull the damned trigger every.single.time. I'm tired of us doing the West's dirty work. Italy could do something diplomatic, unilaterally, since it broke Libya to begin with.

LouBristol

Berlusconi has already rescued all the voluptuous nurses. Can't ask more of Italy.

Negropolis

True. But who will rescue the non-voluptuous nurses? They're people too, right?

http://johnnyzhivago.blogspot.com johnnyzhivago

In American business this kind of deal is known as "a golden parachute"

http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/cheaphits/reviews/ cheaphits

That's right and like in business it follows the "golden shower".

mumbly_joe

I thought the "golden shower" was what everyone else got, as it all "trickled down".

Negropolis

In Soviet Russia, parachute goldens you!

Wait, wha?!

Come here a minute

What's that in the photo? It's the bow again! NOBAMA!!!!!!!!

http://wonkette.com/ weejee

Well Hopey has connections to Hawaii. Mehbe Barry could swing Kuhdaffy a nice hot spot on Kilauea.

Plowmon

Let him move to NYC and see if he can't sell his Spring Collection of, um, gown robe things…

Barbara_i

They should let him escape to Lockerbie.

http://wonkette.com Zvi_Bleindmeis

“In Fashion, One Day You're In and the Next You're Out.”
-H. Klum

FraAnima

Wonkette – your source for Political and Project Runway faps.

http://www.vinoverve.com Maman

Epic! I believe that I shall put the advice "Don’t send military jet planes to bomb your own people just before asking them for a “deal.” up there with "Don't get involved in a land war in Asia".

V572625694

More support for the "Gates is best SecDef evah" hypothesis. He speaks truth to power! His own power! It's meta, but it's good.

Somewhere, Caspar Weinberger is slapping his forehead and saying, "If I'd thought of this, I might not have needed a pardon from Reagan to escape prison time!"

HistoriCat

Does it really rank up there with "never match wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line"?

http://www.vinoverve.com Maman

Pretty close…

CapeClod

He must be running out of bullets.

Terry

A couple of points:

– Qaddafi not only asked to leave the country unharmed but he also asked for immunity from prosecution for himself and his family. I suspect that second part really stuck in folks' craws. I do think that if the Qaddafi family is given safe passage, they should be required to live in southwest Scotland or northwestern England, say not far from Lockerbie.

– On Gitmo, the GOP'ers put a wee tidbit in the defense appropriation that prohibited any of the prisoners at Gitmo from being transferred to prisons/jails on US land. It makes it really hard to try them in civilian court in NYC or DC if you can't hold them on US soil. Personally, I think they should put them on a plane circling the Federal Courthouse in Alexandria, landing only for the times of day that the trial is in progress, then fly the guy around all night until it's time for court again. Get a plane with a bedroom and bathroom, be civilized, but try the guy in civilian court without putting them in a cell on US soil. Something like that. Call the frickin' GOP'ers' bluff.

http://wonkette.com/ starfanglednut

I actually read somewhere that he not only wanted immunity, but a tidy sum of money as well.

V572625694

Does the term "immunity" include "additional private Beyonce concerts"? If so, it's a deal!

mumbly_joe

In fairness, if Bizarro Bush were president, he'd have just said, "Unitary Executive/Commander in Chief here, screw you guys" and then used money from somewhere else instead. Or else made a credible promise to veto any defense appropriations that didn't include the funds, just like actual Bush promised to, and did, veto any defense appropriations that included a timeline to make our commitment in Iraq less open-ended, why doesn't anybody remember when that went down.

So, there was a path foward that would have still allowed him to honor his promises, and also the actual rule of law, if Obama had a pair.

BerkeleyBear

But to follow one aspect of the rule of law, you have to continue a path that violates the fundamental scheme of government and would embolden the next ratfuck Republican to name himself (because let's face it even they won't elect Sarah or Shelly) Emperor Zurg and enslave us all in the name of galactic security. Not sure that's a trade off I'd be comfortable with.

mumbly_joe

Then go with a credible veto threat. Nothing even remotely questionable about that route.

Let's be honest though- whatever Bams does while he's in office at this point, the next Republican is going to revert to the worst of Bush years and then keep going, but it's going to be because Democrats refused to hold them accountable for actual literal law-breaking, not because Obama used a signing statment once.

Moonbat

What the Democrats do or don't do or haven't done is going to have absolutely jack shit to do with what the next Republican President does. What killed Nixon and McCarthy was their widespread, toxic unpopularity. Today's Republicans have mastered the art of not giving a shit about that, and being an aggressively toxic asshole appears to appeal to roughly half of the population, so the next Republican President is just going to cold do whateverthefuck he thinks he can get away with.

Given that harsh reality, of course, Hopey and the Democrats should Do The Right Thing. Of course, since most of the Democrats are scared shitless about being portrayed as "soft on terrorism" (news flash, boyos – it's gonna happen whatever you do, so just fucking own it), that's not gonna happen. Remember, Obama wanted to close down Guantanamo and couldn't get Congress to fund it when the Democrats controlled both houses.

God, this is fucking depressing.

mumbly_joe

At least half my point was that contra Nixon and McCarthy, one of whom was shamed out of politics, the other of whom left town once it was clear the sheriff was on his trail, and both of whose names are presently synonymous with paranoid political thuggery, Bush has actually gotten away with it.

Bush will live a contented, wealthy retirement while he continues to try to spin his legacy of torture, aggressive war, and class warfare, and Cheney will die a free man, and both of those are things that Democrats could have done something about, as well as being things that tie directly to what future Republicans think they can get away with.

Moonbat

Shaming McCarthy out of politics and (getting ready to be) impeaching Nixon were only possible because at the time Republicans could feel shame – Nixon only resigned after the leaders of his own party told him the jig was up. I suggest that Republicans no longer feel shame, and for that reason there was never any real possibility that Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, etc. would be held accountable for ass-raping Iraq, Afghanistan, and their own country.

Which doesn't necessarily mean the Democrats shouldn't have tried, but would the result "Cheney, Bush acquitted on war crimes charges" be any more of a discouragement to (say) President Huckabee's malfeasance than the current situation? I don't know.

And let's say they did do that. Hell, let's go crazy and say they were successful. What else would they have accomplished over the last two and a half years? My guess is: Nothing.

Which is why this all so fucking depressing. Lunatics and assholes run the show, and when they finally screw up enough to get called on it, they treat the good of the country as a hostage and walk off, free as bird.

Ruhe

Amen.

Come here a minute

That would be a good use for those stupidly expensive new "aerial refueling tanker aircraft".

http://whatisawatthedevolution.blogspot.com imissopus

It's a shit sandwich all the way around with Gitmo. The GOP and moderate to conservative Dems won't allow the administration to transfer prisoners to civilian courts. Other countries won't take them off our hands, except those that would treat them as heroes and martyrs, which of course would be a giant shitstorm with the American public. So they have just continued to sit in limbo with not even the possibility of a kangaroo court tribunal to bring their ordeals to an end one way or the other. This is probably the least bad solution, and even this sucks.

MildMidwesterner

"Don’t send military jet planes to bomb your own people just before asking them for a 'deal.'”

Usually one doesn't have to ask for a deal when one uses military jet planes. You're doing it wrong, Gaddafi.

freakishlywrong

Somehow all this shit is good for John McCain, (Sunday shows), /bad for Obamar, (he's waffling!). How a "tyrant/Marxist/Kenyan maumau-er" is painted as weak has yet to be explained.

vulpes82

I actually like the way Obama is handling Libya. It isn't ALL ABOUT US, and just going in and bombing everything might just make things worse. If it were McCain, we'd be nuking Benghazi.

http://ifthethunderdontgetya.blogspot.com/ ifthethunderdontgetya

Obama is handling Libya just like he's handling Wisconsin and (most) everything else: not doing jack unless some banksters or other powerful corporate types are the beneficiaries.
~

Ramon_X

I've discovered that if I close my eyes and listen to Gaddafi and then to Charlie Sheen, I can't tell them apart.

http://www.wonkette.com/ FlownOver

Let him fly out on that experimental mini-shuttle thing. Because, synergy!

justkillmenow

Gadaffy has some killer costumes. But he's not foolin' anyone with the dye job.

SorosBot

What the fuck? I check Wonkette in the morning as usual, and not only has "morning in America" come super-early but there's two posts from late last night. There's no way to keep up with the comments with this!

V572625694

Somebody whose initials are KL (and I don't mean Kuala Lumpur) was up all night.

http://wonkette.com Ken Layne

Not even! But Jack started posting at midnight, too, so it suddenly seemed like the BBC World Service Overnight Desk, Bush House, London. (Haha, doesn't take much, does it?) Anyway, we were just covering for Riley because he's off today.

Ruhe

Totally! I feel like if I don't get in within the first thirty comments or so then no one but my few sad followers are going to read my stuff and that makes it like, Onanist Snark, you know? Which is just pointless. My only option then is to sneak in closer to the top by replying to commenters with suspiciously high P scores.

SorosBot

When are the evil dictators going to learn? It's simple; if you want to get out of the revolution with your money and body intact, then give up and leave early rather than killing a whole bunch of people and beating more. Hell, you might even be able to keep a little bit of dignity that way.

But he's still "committed to the eventual closure of Guantanamo Bay." Attabay, Bammers! Any bay now.

BerkeleyBear

Apparently Ronnie had almost as big a hardon for Q as W had for Saddam (he didn't actually make stuff up, but he did lean awful hard on a slender read to bomb the man). The fact that W made nice with this nut is yet further proof that the GOP has no guiding principles beyond whatever feels good, right now. Rather ironic in light of the how line about moral relativism the fundies have bashed the liberals with.

SaintRond

If I were able, if I had enough money to buy whatever I wanted, I'd have a secret prison too where I'd rendition all the people who've offended me in some way and then I'd read up on everything I could about the Medieval Chinese justice system and implement it to the point where Gitmo would seem like a health spa somewhere.

That said, I think the President should close all the secret prisons.

BarackMyWorld

I see Barry has fallen back on the "It's ok when I do it because I'm the one doing it" argument that he also used when rationalizing the USAPATRIOT Act. (See also: Romney, Mitt, i.e. healthcare; Gingrich, Newt, i.e. extramarital affairs; and Palin, Sarah, i.e. everything else).

arihaya

maybe Gadhafi wish to retire in order to replace John Galliano as Dior's new designer-in-chief

GayInMaine

Gaddafi – "Oh, this? Just a little something I saw in the window that I couldn't resist."

Moonbat

Hopey's done a lot of good things, but his civil liberties record is in a dead heat with Mickey Kaus for the world championship of goat-blowing. Guh.

hagajim

Maybe Barry will close Gitmo in 2020….oh, right – that wouldn't be Barry – but soneone else.

MinAgain

What a shame. If only those people Qaddafi ordered his planes to bomb had thought to make a "deal" to get out of Libya alive.

Ruhe

Barry's just decided that all Gitmo needs is an "Extreme Makeover: Torture Prison Edition".
He's got designers working on an all new "velvet-covered cement" aesthetic that will clearly demonstrate our commitment to both strength and Justice, just like Clarence the "fantasy package" Thomas does.

DemmeFatale

Mr. Fatale has an elegant solution for us.
He proposes putting all these wacked-out dictators in a depleted, slightly radioactive, precious metals mine, say in Western Australia. (A nod to Australia's past.)
Slow (but steady) radiation poisoning seems a fitting end for these characters.

http://hong-kong-actresses.blogspot.com/ donner_froh

The U.S. would fly AWACS missions and other support operations while the French and British under the auspices of NATO do the bombing to take out the air defense facilities. That should ground everything in Libya.

If the rebels commit to a Nicolas Sarkozy Boulevard in downtown Tripoli it would seal the deal.

Redhead

Are they filming any of those Harry Potter movies currently? Cause those sets seem like great camouflage for Ghaddafi…

friendlyskies

The fake news keeps promising that Gaddafi will be moving here to Nicaragua, to become Daniel Ortega's personal stylist for the next round of giant election billboards. I hope G can come up with something special – long, flowy, climate-appropriate – in Sandinista pink!